Cucina russa e lessico italiano. Il caso di 'Insalata russa'

In this article the author deals with the culinary metaphor ‘insalata russa’ (‘Russian salad’) in Italian language and culture. She starts with a short review of the dish known in Italian as ‘insalata russa’, which roughly corresponds to the Russian ‘Oliviér’ salad. As to the uses of the culinary metaphor ‘insalata russa’, analyzed by the author, they point to the fact that in Italian it is used to indicate a ‘mix of heterogeneous and varied elements’. The occurrences of the locution ‘insalata russa’ comprise the titles of three anthologies of tales (published respectively in 1925, 1934 and 1996), the Italian title of the Russian film Okno v Pariž (Window on Paris), 1994, and the results of the query ‘insalata russa’ in the corpora of Italian language COris/COdis. Finally, the author compares these results with those provided by the search of the same locution in Russian (‘русский салат’). The latter search reveals that in Russian the locution ‘Russian salad’ is used exclusively in its literal sense.